Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell

Hello everyone,
Our story of the week is a classic –  Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell.  It’s a tale about a little boy looking for the perfect pet who writes to a zoo for help.  Their attempts are not very practical, but they finally find the perfect pet for the little boy.
Literacy  – This is another great story to practise the Talk 4 Writing actions (please see last weeks This Week in Nursery).  Why were the zoo’s choices not very good to begin with?  Was the little boy specific when he described the pet he was looking for in his letter to the zoo?  What would you need to do to look after all the different animals in the book?  Describe the animals, imagine what their skin/fur feels like to extend language.  What other words could your child use to describe the animals characters?  The frog was too jumpy but he might be too croaky or slimy as well.
Maths – Continue with last week’s activities – count the animals in the story how many are there, how many different kinds of animals, how many legs/wings/feet do they have? Discuss the size of the different animals in the story, are they all the same?  Use a variety of different words such as tiny, miniscule, huge, gigantic, etc to build up their mathematical vocabulary.  Make a zoo out of duplo, blocks or empty boxes.  What size enclosures would you need to fit the animals?
Until next time, do good looking for adventures, clean your ears out for good listening and turn your noggins (brains) on for good learning.

Take care and stay safe,

Mrs Howe, Mrs Ogilvie-Jones, Mrs Mitzman,  Mrs Hill and Mrs Bence